Moodboard Searches for Talented Amateur Photographers

Moodboard searches for photographers to join the up- and coming stock agency before the next phase of moodboard.com, moodboard 2.0. They claim that moodboard 2.0 will open up a better earnings potential for amateurs and hobbiest than it's rivals, such as iStockphoto.

Looking at moodboard's amazing but short history this claim might be achievable.
It won the gold award for best coporate/business website at the French Awards 2007 and is the fastest growing image provider at Corbis.com. It currently also holds the record for what is believed to be the most expensive royalty-free image ever sold: $16000.

Moodboards requires image exclusivity and seems to be according to their website very selective. Only 5% of submitted images make it into the collection.
They will do the digital processing, retouching, captioning and keywording of all submitted images.
Images can be submitted by CD or DVD.

The moodbard collection contains RM Images and royalty-free images ranging from microstock pricing to traditional pricing. Some of moodboard's images are also distributed through Fotolia's infinite collection.

Stockxpert on Photos.com

Stockxpert images will soon be made available "on one of Jupiterimages' most established and respected stock photo brands -- Photos.com" Photos.com has according to Stockxpert a large and loyal customer base and is by it's own description the "#1 place on the Web to get proffessional royalty-free stock photography by subscription".
There will be no restrictive exclusive commitments for SXP contributors. More information will follow.

Announcement on Stockxpert forum

Alamy's Novel Use Update

Change with Novel Use and Limited Use

The feedback of Alamy's contributors made it clear to the leadership of Alamy that Alamy should provide more flexibility regarding Novel Use. As a result they are looking into the possibility to provide the option to opt in on a specific per images and/or pseudonym basis.
In addition they want to limit the file size more relevant to the specific usage.

Limited Use which is under the Novel Use scheme and which was launched on June 15th in the UK will be now available world wide.

Introduction of Subscription

In addition to Limited Use another Novel Use scheme has been launched: corporate subscriptions for internal use. This scheme is already in use with 4 US organizations and also seems to be similar from the pricing as microstock. Images from this scheme can be used for internal business only.

Contributor Reactions

While these schemes are designed to address new markets and not to devalue the contributor's work, many contributors do not think favourably of Novel Use. They fear images which are bought under Novel Use can be used for other purposes not included in the Novel Use license. This of course would be hard to control. However a lot of contributors do not seem to mind the introduction of Novel Use and opted in. Most of them probably see it as an increased potential for sales.

This development is followed with interest by microstock contributors who have obviously less a problem to sell their images at a low price.
A lot of microstock contributors who are also contributors to Alamy are keeping separate portfolios for Alamy and for microstock. But with the introduction of Novel Use some microstock contributors might rethink the strategy of keeping separat portfolios as mentioned in a microstock forum.

More Information on the Alamy Blog.

Ivan Purdie Talks about Snapvillage

An interview about Snapvillage by Photoinduced with Ivan Purdie, Senior VP of Corbis.com.

Shutterstock's Image Library Hits 4 Million Images – A Record-Breaking Milestone for the Online Stock Photography Industry

World's largest microstock photo agency continues to experience rapid growth as Rodney Hobart, of Neosho, Missouri, “drives in”

4 Millionth photo of historic Route 66 Landmark

New York, July 2nd, 2008 - Shutterstock, the world's largest subscription-based online stock photo company, announced today that its royalty-free image bank has surpassed 4 Million images - a major milestone which reinforces the Manhattan-based company's leadership position in the exploding global online stock photography industry.

Shutterstock is also pleased to announce that Rodney Hobart, a photographer and designer/illustrator based in Neosho, Missouri, contributed the 4 Millionth photo – an eye-catching image of a historic drive-in theater on Route 66. It was his first time submitting a photo to Shutterstock.

“To be approved on my first go is an honor, but even more surprising was how fast my portfolio was reviewed,” said Hobart. “I uploaded my photographs and was approved by the next day, while most microstock sites take five or more days to approve. I am a newbie to the site, but so far it has surpassed my expectations and I look forward to building up my portfolio in the next few months.”

Jon Oringer, Shutterstock founder and CEO, credits the submissions of talented photographers like Hobart to the company’s tremendous growth.

“We’re growing exponentially thanks to our global community of top-notch submitters who upload their images to our library and supply our subscribers with a steady pipeline of fresh, creative content,” said Oringer. “Today’s more challenging economy coupled with a sophisticated Web 2.0 business environment has resulted in a greater demand for affordable, premium royalty-free images. As a result, Shutterstock is directly addressing the changing needs of the marketplace by providing an expansive selection of high-quality stock images via an affordable, user-friendly subscription model.”

Shutterstock adds more than 40,000 stock photos, vectors and illustrations per week and has added over 1.2 million stock images so far in 2008 alone. The company attributes its tremendous growth to its innovative business model, which harnesses the power of a broad spectrum of talented photographers and illustrators worldwide - from the seasoned professional to the skilled amateur - who upload their work to Shutterstock’s website. Shutterstock chooses only the best of these images for its subscribers, who represent a global customer base of creative agencies, corporations, publishers and freelancers.

In 2006, Shutterstock also launched its online stock footage business, Shutterstock Footage, and the company has already amassed more than 60,000 royalty-free stock footage clips, and adds over 1,000 each week. Footage is available by individual clip for as little as $10. In April of this year, Shutterstock made its stock footage available by subscription, following the model that made the company’s stock photo site such a tremendous success.

About Shutterstock:

Founded in 2003, Shutterstock is the largest subscription-based stock photo agency in the world. Its outstanding collection of premium images combined with a user-friendly subscription model has made Shutterstock a trusted resource for an expanding global customer base. For more information, visit www.Shutterstock.com.

Punctum Day 2008 Announced by iStockphoto

iStockphoto announced yesterday Punctum Day 2008. Punctum Day was created in 2007 to "celebrate creative excellence". Punctum Day contains lots of awards which total $40000.

Catgories are:
Photo of the year - $5000
Vector of the year - $5000
Video of the year - $5000
Flash of the year - $5000
Design of the year - $5000

Most improved contributor of the year - $5000
Most deserving of a new camera - (canon or nikon) $5000 value
Battle Royale Champion - $5000

Voting for the first five categories can be done by each iStockphoto member ( July 2-25). The final winners of the top ten chosen by the iStockphoto's mebers will then be picked by iStockphoto's judges. Announcement of the winners will be on Punctum Day (August 19)

PantherMedia Midstock images now directly available on the i-picturemaxx network

Press release

Munich, Germany

June 23^rd, 2008

PantherMedia is further extending their cooperation with picturemaxx. Germany’s first midstock agency is now also offering their royalty free images at a bargained price through Germany’s most successful media marketing platform,
i-picturemaxx.

With the corporation of the stock agency and photo community PantherMedia GmbH and picturemaxx AG, over 500,000 selected royalty free images of the PantherMedia archive, commercial as well as editorial, are now being offered through the media marketing platform, i-picturemaxx (former APIS network). So far those images could only be found on the picturemaxx.net web portal.

Unique to PantherMedia are the agency’s bargained prices: the costs for images in web resolution start out at 4,90 €. Licences for high resolution images can already be purchased for as low as 29,90 €.

The platform i-picturemaxx aggregates the portfolios of over 250 stock photo agencies, media portals and archives, making them available to a user community of several thousand editors and creative professionals from over 500 magazine and newspaper publishers, companies and advertising agencies in the domestic market and abroad.

„In cooperating with Germany’s most successful media marketing platform we have won a new strong affiliate, with respect to particularly the editorial market“, explains Robert Walters, Managing Director of PantherMedia.

„The image market changes rapidly and our i-picturemaxx platform reflects the needs of this market. Of course, this also includes new licence and price models like those of PantherMedia. With this segment, we will be able to approach other and new groups of photo buyers“, says Bernd Czichon, CEO of the picturemaxx company.

Registered users can download high-resolution photos over i-picturemaxx and will then be taken care of by PantherMedia. Personal service, flexible invoicing and a constantly growing archive of more than 1,000 new images per day are the assets of PantherMedia’s archives on i-picturemaxx.

About PantherMedia:

Panthermedia.net is an online marketplace for royalty-free photography. Buyers and sellers of royalty-free images meet on one common platform. This platform is divided into a photo community for photographers and a stock agency for art buyers. In the photo community, photographers upload their images to licence these images in the stock agency. After a legal and quality check by PantherMedia, art buyers can search, licence and instantly download the images.

About picturemaxx:

picturemaxx™ AG is the sole operator of the independent, international media marketing platform i-picturemaxx™ (formerly the APIS™ network), which aggregates the portfolios of over 250 photo agencies, media portals and archives, making them available to a user community of several thousand editors and creative professionals from over 500 magazine and newspaper publishers, companies and advertising agencies in the domestic market and abroad.

As the leading system provider in the photo and media industry with over 25 years of specialist expertise, picturemaxx develops and provides software and database solutions for marketing, managing and archiving digital content, as well as for the targeted procurement of images and related media.

Dreamstime Announced Price Adjustment and Level Update

Dreamstime announced today price adjustments and Level updates effective in the middle of July.
Credit prices will increase as high as 50-75% in average and subscription commission will increase 16.66% for non-exclusive contributors.

Dreamstime in Six New Languages

Today Dreamstime launched an upgrade of their website to serve customers and contributors in 6 additional languages besides English. Dreamstime is now also accessible in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese.

Since Dreamstime's non-English traffic is currently 40% this upgrade seems to go in the right direction. Dreamstime expects to double their traffic by the end of the year.

Alamy is Listening to It's Contributors

After Alamy introduced "Limited Use" which addresses customers of the microstock market and after some protest about this introduction, Alamy restored the trust of it's contributors by offering the possibility to opt out of this program the following two weeks . Usually contributors can only opt out every April.